The invention is concerned with the electronic field and especially with the technologies of manufacturing of semiconductor devices.
A method is known from the prior art, more particularly from the French Patent Application No. 2,180,540, by means of which semiconductor devices are manufactured by implantation of oxygen ions in an epitaxial layer deposited preliminarily on a substrate so that isolating zones are formed having a depth which exceeds that of the epitaxial layer.
However, the effects of such an implantation in an arbitrary substrate of GaAs or in an epitaxial layer deposited on such a substrate are strongly dependent upon the initial conditions, for example, the initial doping of the substrate, and these known methods of manufacturing semiconductor devices by ion implantation involve the rejection of a very large number of wafers which are not suitable for the use for which they are intended.
Moreover, the technology developed in the aforementioned patent is comparatively complex because it is based on the assumption that two different incompatible treatments have to be carried out, i.e. a first treatment comprising an epitaxial growth and a second treatment comprising an ion implantation.